The Elephant in the Room
by Skylar Vega
Summary: Between men and women there is no friendship possible. Post ep: Extreme.


**The Elephant in the Room**  
by Skylar

_-- _

_Between men and women there is no friendship possible.  
There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.  
--Oscar Wilde_

_-- _

She found him in the layout room, his body hunched over a set of fingerprints.

His eyes darted over the lens but his movements were lethargic. Watching him, she could see how tired he was. And yet he had decided to work overtime that day. She knew he was trying to prove something - to her, to Speedle, to Horatio. She wondered if he knew how ridiculous he could be at times.

"Hey," Calleigh said, putting a cheerful smile on her face that would hopefully rub off on him.

But it didn't work. Instead, he looked up at her with a tang of disinterest and then continued to inspect the fingerprints. "Hey."

Calleigh rolled her eyes at herself and walked over. She hated when he acted like this. "What are you doing?"

"Just trying to find a match," Eric replied as he moved from one fingerprint to the other.

Calleigh watched him. He had been examining the same prints when she walked by nearly half an hour ago. She knew he wouldn't find a match tonight. Not because there wasn't one, but because his eyes probably were malfunctioning due to exhaustion, not to mention the beating he'd taken. She felt nauseous just thinking about it.

"Why don't you go home? It's been a long day," she suggested.

"When I finish this."

"Eric," she said in her most matronly tone. "We're not gonna catch him tonight. Get some sleep."

He didn't reply.

Calleigh continued to stare at him as he ignored her, and she briefly got the feeling that he was mad at her. It was a ridiculous and selfish thought, but even if he was she couldn't help thinking that maybe she deserved that.

She walked over and leaned against the table with her arms crossed in front of her as he worked. He'd probably gone through the fingerprints at least a dozen times by now. She entertained the idea that maybe he was scared to go home.

At the thought, Calleigh put her hand on his back; he tensed up. She briefly wondered if it had anything to do with the bruises at all.

"Come on, Eric," he said, trying to dissuade him. "Let's go."

He sighed and stared at the fingerprint sheet, trying to decide what to do. Calleigh made the decision for him by taking his tools and putting them away, and Eric had no other choice but to follow her into the locker room.

She waited patiently for him, and it seemed he was moving slower than usual. She stood by the door as he got his things out of his locker and put them inside a bag. He looked up at her for a fraction of a second, but still long enough for Calleigh to feel it in her stomach: his anger, the disappointment, whatever it was.

Eric shut the locker door and walked towards her. "I can find my way out."

"I know." She smiled brightly.

Calleigh walked ahead of him, down the hallway and towards the front desk. She waved goodbye to Paula cheerily; Eric didn't seem to share her good mood.

She was glad someone else was riding the elevator with them, because she got the feeling the silence would be too much to bear. When the elevator opened in the main floor, she walked out and Eric followed her tiredly.

It was already night out.

"Where's your car?" Calleigh asked while her eyes scanned the parking lot.

"I took a cab," Eric replied.

"From the hospital?" she said, and her eyes widened in surprise when he nodded his head.

He began to walk, though it seemed to her that he didn't know where he was going, and she took a couple of steps ahead of him to guide him towards her car. She opened the passenger door and he dropped his body on the seat without even asking her for a ride. Calleigh was glad that at least their non-verbal communication was intact.

She climbed behind the wheel and for fifteen minutes they sat there in silence as she drove and wondered what he was thinking. Though he kept fiddling with the radio, she could still feel the tension between them. It came as no surprise but it took her by surprise nonetheless.

Between her and Eric there had always been some sort of vibe that extended way beyond the borders of friendship. For years they'd both tried to get over it, enforce the friendship and ignore everything else. But so far they'd been unsuccessful, and whatever was happening between them grew by the day.

Calleigh sometimes wondered how it would all end. Being around Eric was like waiting for a bomb to explode. Though she took comfort in the uneventful seconds that ticked by, she _knew_ something bigger was coming, and that was enough to overwhelm her at times.

It was perhaps that one thing they shared that had made things worse that day, because she'd been watching him from afar, and he didn't seem to be angry at Horatio or at Speed.

Whatever was happening was only happening between him and her.

She parked in front of his building and threw a glance at him. He looked even worse now, and though his eye was bruised she could still detect the dark circle under it. He looked like death incarnate. It was enough for her to make the decision to at least try to fix whatever was broken.

Eric chuckled mirthlessly when she put the gear on park. "Calleigh, I don't need you to baby-sit me."

"Your cheek is bleeding," she said as she took the keys out of the ignition.

Eric touched his left cheek. The cut was in fact bleeding, and though he looked around Calleigh's car he couldn't find anything to clean it up with.

It was too late anyway, because Calleigh was already climbing out of the car, and when Calleigh made a decision, there was no convincing her otherwise. So he had no other option but to sigh and climb out of her car, and follow her towards his building.

They rode the elevator up in silence, and when he opened the door to his home she walked past him, like she owned the place, and headed towards the bathroom. Eric put his things away, and though his stomach had been grumbling all night, he was too tired to even think about making dinner. He walked towards his bedroom, took his shoes off, and began to unbutton his shirt when Calleigh appeared with a bottle of rubbing alcohol in one hand and a couple of cotton balls in the other.

"Lay down."

Eric looked back at her, and she looked so serious, so business-like, he couldn't refute. He sat on the bed, but that didn't seem to please her, and he sighed in annoyance as she made him lay back.

He watched her as she studied the cut carefully, as if it were a bullet she was trying to identify. Having her close was suddenly a bit overwhelming, smelling her perfume, feeling her breath on him, and as she played nurse and bathed a cotton ball in rubbing alcohol, he decided right there that he couldn't stay mad at her for long. It was useless. It had never worked. Every time she did or said something that pissed him off, his anger would subside quickly. It was too hard to stay mad when she looked as beautiful as she looked now, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, her hair blonder than usual, her eyes greener.

And this time maybe he couldn't place all the blame on her. After all, Calleigh's misconceptions weren't always fictitious.

"It's gonna sting," she whispered as she studied the blood, trying to decide how to proceed. Eric didn't look threatened at all, so she decided to just clean it away quickly, like ripping off a band aid.

But he still winced when the cotton came in contact with his skin. She blew on his cheek and he gradually opened his eyes again as the pain left him. She smiled down at him and though he smiled back, faintly, he was still avoiding eye contact. But at least that was progress. She could see that the walls beginning to crumble.

She could also see the white bandage peering through his shirt.

"Can I see?"

Eric looked at her hesitantly, and after a second he sat up and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way. He threw it to the side. She seemed nervous at first, like she had regretted her request, but then reached over to find the edge of the bandage. She found it had been wrapped from behind, and she inched closer to wrap her arms around him and try and remove it.

Eric let her peel away the bandage, their heads so close her hair brushed against his nose and cheeks. He took a deep breath but suddenly became distracted as her hands touched his skin. Her fingers were cold and he shivered, but he'd learned long ago that even when her hands were warm his body still reacted the same way. Her hands weren't too cold. Her hands were just too "Calleigh."

Though Calleigh was also aware of how intimate the situation was, she tried to ignore it as she removed the bandage and turned it into a ball as she unwrap it from around his torso. His skin was warm, probably a product of his injuries, and her eyes widened in horror as she removed the last layer and uncovered the red, purple, and black bruises that decorated his chest, stomach, and ribs.

"Eric," she winced.

He looked straight ahead, not wanting to see his own injuries but more importantly, not wanting to see the look on her face. He hated it when Calleigh was upset.

"It doesn't hurt," he said, but his voice wavered a little, enough to uncover his lie.

Calleigh traced the outline of a bruise with her finger and he jerked away. She drew her hand back, but couldn't tear her eyes away from it. Though the bruises were so big they looked like a single one, some of them had distinctive markings. She looked up at Eric and she could tell he already knew what she was wondering.

"I think they had a pipe," Eric said.

She swallowed hard as she looked at him. Though he was trying to appear brave and indifferent, she could see right through him. "Did it, uh..."

Eric smiled. "I'm okay, Cal."

Calleigh nodded. She understood his words, but still couldn't understand what was happening. She felt tears burning on the back of her eyes every time she pictured him on the ground, strange men beating him with a pipe. She couldn't believe he hadn't called her, that he hadn't called Horatio or _someone_. She knew she probably didn't have the right to be that first call, but a part of her was still mad at him for not letting them know what had happened. What if his injuries had been more serious? What if he had died?

Eric could tell what she was thinking just by looking at her. She had that look on her face, the one that indicated she was letting herself get overwhelmed by all the "what ifs." He brought his hand up and rested it on the side of her face in an attempt to make her feel better, but if anything, it made her tense up even more.

She immediately tried to stand up but Eric grabbed her hand and forced her to remain seated. He grazed his thumb against her cheek, and though she seemed nervous she still leaned in and rested her forehead to his as a thousand different emotions rushed through her. Only one seemed to stick out.

Truth was she felt guilty. Guilty because when Speedle paged Eric and he never answered, her mind immediately conjured the image of him with another woman. She'd been pissed. Pissed at him for choosing sex over his job. She was pissed at him still, for some reason. But mostly she was pissed at herself for jumping to conclusions, because as they waited for him that morning it never occurred to her that the reason why he never showed up was because he was in a hospital bed, covered in cuts and bruises.

And even after she found out what happened, she still couldn't let go of the idea that this woman, the woman who had been stealing most of his free time, the one responsible in part for his attack, was something more to him than a theft victim.

His words then came back to her in a rush. "It's not like that."

She knew it the minute he insisted on it, because she could always tell when Eric was lying. And though she knew there were no ulterior motives behind his charity work, a part of her still felt uneasy. She was too proud, and too ignorant of her own feelings, to recognize it as jealousy.

She had been wrong, wrong to accuse him of wanting something else with that woman, wrong to say it to him like that, wrong to underestimate him. And now, she wanted nothing but his reassurance. She briefly wondered when Eric's thoughts had become so important to her. She found she couldn't really figure it out.

"Eric, I didn't mean to doubt you," she whispered.

"I know," he replied.

Calleigh pulled back and looked at him, and the sincerity in his eyes put her at ease. But suddenly she felt the moment growing near, the seconds ticking by faster, the bomb about to explode.

And she could tell her felt it, too, but unlike her, he didn't seem scared. He merely smiled at her and raised his eyebrows playfully. How could he be so at ease with it? How could he sit there and smile and just wait for it to happen? It was killing her, inside, out, but it didn't seem to faze him. She hated his complete lack of issues sometimes.

"Wanna order a pizza?" he said as if he couldn't feel the tension in the room.

Calleigh smiled, and the question seemed to take away the heavy weight on her shoulders. Suddenly it was like nothing had happened at all. That was the thing about Eric. He could pick her up and with one single look catapult her into the moon, but then he would smile and she'd feel grounded again.

It was the scariest feeling in the world.

"I better get home," she said.

"Are you sure?" Eric smiled. "I have _Apocalypse Now_ on DVD."

Calleigh looked at him. He had that look on his face, the one that told her he knew he had already won the battle. And of course he had. She found she couldn't say no to him every time he smiled at her like that.

"Okay."

--

She held the remote control in her hand and watched as the opening credits rolled by. The movie would start booming any minute now, but despite how excited she got when she watched _Apocalypse Now_, she found herself hitting the "stop" button.

Next to her, Eric was already asleep.

It hadn't taken him 15 minutes. She knew he'd tried to stay awake for her, but she couldn't blame him for succumbing to exhaustion. She looked at him, and the swelling in his eye was beginning to subside. Despite everything she believed to be true and important she found herself reaching over and tracing the bruise. His face twisted and she smiled.

A voice in her head told her this was an extreme violation of his privacy. He was sleeping and she was touching his face. She didn't even like to touch people while they were awake. It just didn't feel right.

Except it kind of did now.

Alarmed, she frowned at herself and sat up. It had been a long day, made even longer by Eric's attack. She just wanted to go home, get into her bed, and forget everything had happened. In the morning she'd be herself again, Eric would be his old self, and they could just go back to ignoring the tic-tac that was now beginning to sound too loud.

_The Telltale Heart_.

She smiled to herself.

"Cal?"

Calleigh's smile faded, her eyes got wide and her body shivered. She looked down at Eric, but his eyes were closed. She relaxed, amused at the fact that he talked in his sleep, and went to stand up but suddenly felt a hand encircle her wrist.

"Do you have to go?"

Calleigh looked down at him again. His eyes were still closed and she briefly wondered if he was still sleeping. But his grip on her was too tight and after she extricated her wrist off his hand she smiled. "I think it's best if I do."

Eric opened his eyes. He immediately decided he liked the sight of Calleigh when waking up from a slumber. The second thing he noticed was how tired she looked. Her make-up was beginning to wear off and the dark circles under her eyes were noticeable.

As much as he wanted her to stay and tender to him, he decided it would be best to let her go. He looked at her, and she seemed to be struggling with herself as well. Eric sometimes wondered how long they would be able to keep this charade.

Blonde hair suddenly rained on his face as she leaned down and kissed his forehead. He closed his eyes and tried to enjoy the moment as much as he could, knew he wouldn't be able to have her again like this for a long time, if ever.

"Don't ever get yourself into trouble again, okay?" Calleigh said.

Eric smiled. "Okay."

"Or I'll be the one coming at you with a pipe."

He chuckled softly and played with her fingers momentarily, until they slipped off his hand and she walked out of his bedroom.

Calleigh closed his door and hesitated. After a couple of seconds, the lights in his bedroom went off, and she knew it was time to go.

She hesitantly walked towards the front door, found her purse on the little table sitting by it, and when she opened the door she nearly collided with the pizza delivery man.

Of course, the pizza. She'd completely forgotten about it.

So she paid the man and after grabbing two slices to go, she pushed the big box into Eric's refrigerator. Maybe he could have it for breakfast, or maybe he'd wake up in the middle of the night, hungry.

She threw a casual glance at his door at the thought. What if he woke up in the middle of the night in pain? She began to doubt her decision to leave. She could sleep on the couch and make sure he slept alright, because she was sure that as soon as those pain pills wore off he'd be in excruciating pain. She pictured the bruises again, pictured the pipes, pictured him lying on the ground.

It was too much. She hadn't wanted to react to these thoughts in front of him but they came avalanching down on her now. When she saw him that morning she figured he'd been punched in the face at best. She never imagined it was as serious as this. She never imagined he had to spend the night at the hospital. She still couldn't believe he hadn't called her.

Why hadn't he called her?

She half wished she could go back in there and ask him that. But then she reminded herself of her reaction that morning. Maybe he knew she'd immediately jump to conclusions like she had. And it's not like she went around judging other, because she was usually pretty good at understanding others. Speed himself had been late hundreds of times back when he had been dating Pam. Horatio was currently caught in a triangle that was missing one corner. And still, she didn't judge them. She never had. She doubted she ever would. But then, things were much different when it came to Eric.

Everything was different when it came to Eric.

He was the exception to every one of her rules. He stirred things up after she spent hours putting herself together. She hated herself for leading with her emotions when he was around, when she usually lead with her head. She hated him for it. Most of the time, she wished this thing between them would just vanish.

With that thought in mind, she glanced down the small hallway and then looked at the apartment door in front of her. With a sigh, she opened it and walked away.

--The End--  
6/23/05


End file.
